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Pig farmer 'butchered victims'
23/01/2007 07:25 - (SA)
Allan Dowd
Vancouver - Accused serial killer Robert "Willie" Pickton butchered his
victims after death, and evidence will include heads that have
been cut in half and other severed bones, prosecutors told a
Canadian court on Monday.
"He murdered them, butchered their remains and disposed of
them," prosecutor Derrill Prevett told the court in New
Westminster, British Columbia, in his first glimpse of
horror-film like evidence that prosecutors say will prove
Pickton to be Canada's deadliest serial killer.
Pickton, a pig farmer, showed no apparent emotion in the
prisoners' box at the start of the trial, which is being held
in a courtroom packed with the relatives of the victims.
Pickton is charged with killing 26 women, although this
trial will deal with just six of the murder charges. The judge
divided the case into two trials to make it easier for jurors
to handle.
Prevett said there is no dispute that the six women had
been killed and their remains found on Pickton's farm in Port
Coquitlam, British Columbia.
Gun with dildo attached
Prosecutors said the evidence will include at least two
heads found in buckets packed with the feet of the victims and
a gun with a dildo attached to it on which the DNA of at least
one of the victims was found. All of the victims appear to have
been killed by gun shot.
The judge presiding over the trial warned jurors they must
brace themselves for "shocking" testimony.
"I must ask each of you to deal with it as best you can," Judge James Williams told the 12 men and women who will listen to evidence in a trial
expected to last at least a year.
Williams also warned the media about breaking any
publication bans, which restrict, for example, the release of
evidence previously produced in pre-trial hearings.
Families of victims 'angry'
Family members of the missing women, local and
international media and members of the public began gathering
outside the courthouse several hours before the high-profile
trial began.
Some family members, like Lynn Frey, the stepmother of
Marnie Frey, one of the six women Pickton is accused of
killing, were not allowed into the courtroom because they have
been subpoenaed as potential witnesses.
"I am angry," Frey said. "I've got a lot of emotions going
through me right now... I want someone to be held accountable
for what happened," she said, shivering in the rain outside the
court.
The women Pickton is accused of killing were among more
than 60 prostitutes who disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown
Eastside - one of Canada's poorest neighbourhoods - from the
late 1980s until late 2001.
Pickton, 57, has pleaded not guilty to murder. He is the
only person charged in the case.
- Reuters
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